Ocean Film Festival Tour Magazine - 2023 Virtual Edition

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contents
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WELCOME
FILM LINE-UP
BLUETITS
THE CUSTODIANS
THE STORM CHASER
SALTY SEA DOGS
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
FOLLOW US ON:
OceanFilmFestUK
Cover image: Photo by Jake Wilton
Photo from the film Broken Breath

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WELCOME TO THE OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL
All aboard for a night of ocean
adventure! Welcome to the 10th
edition of the Ocean Film Festival, and
thank you for joining us for a night of
inspiration from above and below the
waves.
The Ocean Film Festival Tour was created
in Australia, with the aim of inspiring
people to enjoy, explore and protect our
oceans, and over the last 10 years it’s
visited 14 countries, featured the work
of over 90 independent filmmakers, and
raised over £20,000 for marine charities.
To celebrate our 10-year anniversary,
we’ve also caught up with some of the
stars of previous Ocean Film Festival
films – check out the ‘Where are they now’
section on page 21.
We’d like to thank our tour partners
for their support, including presenting
partners the Marine Conservation Society
and PADI. We’d also like to thank our
fantastic Ocean Crew team – volunteers
local to each event, who helped promote
our live theatre shows (and do the running
around in the prize draw!).
This year’s film line-up embodies the
spirit of the festival, with an exciting
mix of extreme watersports and marine
conservation. And from cold-water
swimming in the film Bluetits, to a journey
of recovery in Broken Breath, the films
also highlight the profound benefits of a
lifestyle connected to the ocean.
And lastly thank you to you, the
audience, for your support over the last
10 years. Here’s to the next 10 years of
sharing mesmerising stories from the
world’s oceans!
The Ocean Film Festival UK Team
TOUR PARTNERS

FILM PROGRAMME
BLUETITS
Filmmaker: Katie Burdon | 11 minutes
When Sian Richardson went for a cold water dip in
Pembrokeshire in 2014, she never dreamt she’d inspire an
international movement. Sian went on to form the beloved
swimming group Bluetits, which now has around 100,000
participants worldwide. A journey of self-discovery and joie
de vivre, Bluetits is a heartwarming celebration of chilly older
women and the community that brings them together.
BROKEN BREATH
Filmmaker: Morgan Bertacca | 25 minutes
Broken Breath follows Italian free-diving champion Mike Maric,
who was at the top of his sport when a tragic accident left his
world shattered. Mike went from being able to hold his breath
for over five minutes, to being unable to hold it for 10 seconds.
From swimming with dolphins to self-discovery, this film
shares a journey of how the ocean can be an opportunity to find
rebirth.
THE CUSTODIANS
Filmmaker: Arthur Neumeier | 17 minutes
Meet the Scots who are restoring their local waters, one seagrass
bed at a time. Commercial overfishing and bottom trawling
have turned Scotland’s once-thriving west coast waters into
sparse, lifeless deserts. The Custodians follows the work of three
locals who are reclaiming their natural coastlines, restoring
wildlife, creating sustainable industries and showing us how
we can work with, not against, our ocean.
HYPNOTISE
Filmmaker: Ste Everington | 4 minutes
Hypnotise captures the relationship between the wreck of an
Australian Navy ship and the marine life that embodies it. The
ex-HMAS Brisbane is now a 130-metre artificial reef that is home
to over 200 species of fish. Beautifully shot beneath the waves
of Australia’s Sunshine Coast, this short film is an underwater
celebration of the old and the new.
8 UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

SALTY SEA DOGS
Filmmaker: Jemima Robinson| 8 minutes
From rescue dog to Australian dog surf champion – meet
Spike the surfing dog! Spike was adopted by lifelong surfer
Rob Lorenzo, and despite having never seen the sea before,
expressed a keen interest to get involved with his new owner’s
hobby. With a natural talent for riding the waves, Spike went on
to become a national surfing star, and is proof that you can teach
an old dog new tricks.
THE STORM CHASER
Filmmaker: Jack Pirie | 7 minutes
Big wave windsurfer Thomas Traversa thrives in the most
violent weather conditions, harnessing the power of storms
to push the boundaries of his sport. But for Thomas, riding
in the eye of a storm isn’t about personal achievement – it’s a
chance to immerse himself in the elements at their rawest. The
Storm Chaser is a genre-blurring short film about the profound
encounters between humans and nature at its extremes.
TRULUCK
Filmmakers: Matt Cannon and Jake Smallwood | 22 minutes
Steve Truluck is a part-time window cleaner and a full-time
marine wildlife enthusiast. A surprise encounter with a
humpback whale inspired him to drop his career and focus on
his passion. Steve is now one of the UK’s best whale watching
guides, with an unusual talent for finding killer whales. Truluck
celebrates the life-changing moments that encounters with
these incredible animals can bring.
TWO KINDS OF WATER
Filmmaker: Dan McDougall | 21 minutes
The 5,500km coastline of West Africa is home to some of the
world’s most diverse and dangerous fishing. Skills are handed
down from generation to generation, with fishermen risking
their lives every time they leave the shore. On the north coast
of Senegal (a country whose name means ‘our boat’), we meet
fisherman Ishmaila Mbaye and his wife Koumba, who tell the
story of these vulnerable fishing communities.
UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR
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BLUETITS
MEET THE COLD-WATER SWIMMING GROUP
THAT’S TAKING THE WORLD BY STORM
11 minutes
Filmmaker: Katie Burdon
ight years ago, I would never
“Ehave guessed I would be happy
just bobbing around in the water, talking
bollocks. And now I love nothing better,”
says Sian Richardson, founder of the outdoor
swimming movement Bluetits.
That sentence sums up the ethos of the
group. Bluetits is about fun, friendship
and supporting one another, through the
liberating hobby of open water swimming.
There are no set distances or stop watches,
and thermometers (often in the shape of
rubber ducks) are purely for interest. Bluetits
is free to join, and now has a community of
over 100,000 swimmers worldwide. So how
did it start?
Sian, from Pembrokeshire, says that she
was never sporty at school, but took up
running in her 40s. She worked her way up
UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR
to doing ultra-marathons and triathlons, and
when she started having problems with her
hips, began to train for an ice mile instead
– a challenge that involves swimming a
mile in water that’s 5°C or lower. And that
brought a realisation: “The more I ran, the
more I noticed that runners and triathletes
were generally miserable because their times
were crap or their bike wasn’t quite right,”
says Sian, talking to www.deakinandblue.com.
“When I took up swimming and joined cold
water groups, I realised these people are all
happy! It’s a very different community.”
Sian’s whoops and squeals attracted
attention as she swam in the cold
Pembrokeshire sea throughout the winter of
2014, and others came to join her. And then
more, drawn in by Sian’s enthusiasm and
encouragement. Bluetits now has ‘flocks’
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across the UK and Ireland, including inland
flocks who swim in rivers and lakes, plus
groups as far afield as Portugal, Lanzarote,
Australia and Canada. In 2020, the Bluetits
Chill Swimmers became a social enterprise, to
give a framework to support the fast-growing
community, with any profits going back into
the business. And in March 2023, Sian was
named in the BBC Woman’s Hour’s ‘Women
in Sport’ list, honouring 30 outstanding
British women in sport who are making an
impact, both on and off the field.
It’s so well deserved. The health and
wellbeing benefits of being a Bluetit are
enormous, with 94% of Bluetits saying the
group has had a positive impact on mental
health, and 86% saying it’s improved physical
health. Not bad for a group that Sian describes
as ‘a bunch of cake eating, gin-swilling tits
who make a lot of noise!’
Bluetits is open to any gender, and it’s free.
There are inland and coastal groups across
the UK, Ireland and beyond. Check them
out at www.thebluetits.co, or follow them on
Facebook @TheBluetits.
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UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

Creating beautiful adventures for over 30 years
Cast aside
the everyday.
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+441280 460084
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51 Castle Street, Cirencester, GL7 1QD, United Kingdom
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As surfers, we can lead the way
and make the switch.
Fabian Campagnolo field testing at Dungeons
Photography by Alan van Gysen

the custodians
17 minutes
Filmmaker: Arthur Neumeier
Meet three locals from the west coast of Scotland who are reclaiming
their natural coastlines – and find out how you can help too
hings have changed a lot in the last
“T40 years. Divers will tell you that in
the 1970s it looked like the Red Sea. It was
certainly as biodiverse, but now it’s all gone.”
The Custodians travels to the north west
coast of Scotland, to meet three people
from different walks of life who have a
common goal: to restore wildlife and create
sustainable fishing industries. A fisherman,
a marine scientist and a conservation charity
founder, all three focus on the same issues:
the catastrophic effect of bottom trawling
– dredging the seabed for a single species
which kills all other creatures and destroys
seagrass meadows in the process – and the
lifting of the inshore limit, which has allowed
the practice to happen close to shore.
First up is Danny Renton, CEO and founder
of the charity Seawilding, which is the UK’s
first community-led native oyster and
seagrass restoration project. Seagrass is vital
in terms of climate change – it traps carbon
for thousands of years, storing more carbon
than all of Scotland’s on-land peat, forestry
and soil combined. A healthy seagrass
meadow is also a spawning ground for fish.
With the help of local volunteers, Seawilding
is trialling multiple methods to understand
how best to restore seagrass, at the lowest
possible cost, and at scale.
Next up is Ailsa McLellan, a marine
scientist who helps fishermen get a voice in
UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR
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government. She’s also a coordinator for Our
Seas Coalition, which is an alliance of Scottish
organisations, businesses, communities
and individuals that support a move to the
sustainable use of coastal seas. And finally
there’s Bally Philip, a creel fisherman and
member of the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s
Federation. A creel is a baited pot or a trap
that does very little damage to the seabed,
and is designed around a specific animal, so
other creatures aren’t killed unnecessarily.
The picture since the repealing of the threemile
inshore limit in 1984 is grim – fish species
have plummeted; seabeds have become
barren and commercial fishing has changed
beyond recognition. But the custodians have
a unanimous strategy in the hope of recovery:
bring back a version of the inshore limit; give
preferential access to low-impact fishers, and
make sure it’s properly policed, to make sure
the low-impact fishers are behaving in a lowimpact
way, and so the high-impact fishers
can’t sneak in at night.
We can all help. Bally says: “Firstly, choose
products that aren’t caught by bottom
trawling. Secondly tell decision-makers and
politicians that you don’t support bottom
trawling right up to our shores. There are
many grassroots movements fighting against
heavy industrial fisheries, and the more
people supporting these the better.”
HOW TO HELP:
• Sign Patagonia’s petition against
bottom trawling at www.patagonia.com.
• Seawilding runs volunteer events
such as seagrass harvesting and
seed processing, as well supporting
seagrass surveys in your area. See
www.seawilding.org.
• To get involved on social media, use
the hashtag #BanBottomTrawling.
16 UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

the more likely we are to care for it
underwear and tees made from trees
sueme.com • @wearesueme
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The Storm Chaser
7 minutes
Filmmaker: Jack Pirie
BEHIND THE SCENES OF A DIFFERENT SORT OF ACTION SPORTS FILM
It has all the ingredients for a classic
extreme sports film: big waves, a top
athlete and a dramatic setting. But with
its ethereal atmosphere, introspective
storytelling and clever effects, The Storm
Chaser does something different.
“In the media, extreme sports can
sometimes feel like a battle between human
and nature – risking death to secure the best
photo or video clip,” says filmmaker Jack
Pirie, who’s based in London. “But in The
Storm Chaser I wanted to look at how this
relationship between human and nature
could be viewed as more dance than fight
– a complex but harmonious choreography,
mirroring the chaos we all navigate in our
day-to-day lives.”
The film stars professional windsurfer
Thomas Traversa, from France, who’s
a former world champion at the sport.
Thomas enjoys competing, but his passion is
watching the weather and travelling across
the globe, often alone, in search of elusive
and perilous storms.
“Thomas is one of the most extraordinary
people I’ve had the opportunity to work
with,” says Jack, talking to filmmaker
website Directors Notes. “He’s been chasing
storms for decades and has an intuition for
the natural environment that can feel almost
supernatural at times. If you want to know
when the wind is going to change, or the rain
will start, just ask Thomas.”
18 UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

Photo: Thorsten Indra, Red Bull Content Pool
The action sequences were mostly filmed
during a winter storm in northern Spain,
with a crew of just five people and all
the chaos that you might expect from a
complex shoot that is heavily dependant
on the weather. The windsurfing footage
was filmed partly by drone – an almighty
challenge in such strong winds – and also by
jet ski, with skilled driver and a cameraman
on the back, desperately trying to cling on
as they navigated 14ft waves. Combined
with interviews into Thomas’s psyche and
ghostly special effects, the result is a genreblurring
masterpiece.
“Storms have always held a mythical
power over humankind, and the aim was for
the film to have a mythical sensibility itself,”
says Jack, who specialises in immersive
entertainment, and recently directed the
War of the Worlds Immersive Experience
in London. “Something thrilling, but also
deeply psychological and meditative,
crossing between the borders of fantasy and
reality and drawing on the film noir, thriller
and suspense genres.”
Find out more about Jack, including the
full interview, at www.jackpirie.com.
UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR
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8 minutes
Filmmaker: Jemima Robinson
SALTY SEA DOGS
MEET AUSTRALIA’S FOUR-LEGGED SURF STAR –
AND ALSO DOG SURFING IN THE UK!
It’s the ultimate feel-good story. When
Australian surfer and outdoor enthusiast
Rob Lorenzon adopted Spike from a dog
rescue centre, he was thrilled to have found a
pal for life… but he never imagined he’d get
the dream surf buddy too.
“Spike seemed to know he was a winner. It
was like he was saying, who’d have thought
a dog like me, that nobody wanted, would
become a dog surfing champion?”
Despite having never seen the sea, Spike,
who Rob jokes is part kelpie, part border
collie, part ridgeback and maybe even part
penguin, wasn’t content with watching his
new human companions swim and surf – he
wanted to be involved! He became a skilled
swimmer, diver and even surfer, joining Rob
to catch waves on his stand-up paddleboard,
and in 2018 taking the award for best wave
at the Noosa Dog Surfing Championship in
Queensland.
It might sound niche, but dog surfing has
a long pedigree. It was first documented
in the 1920s in California and Hawaii. In
the 1930s, a silent film called On The Waves
in Waikiki showed Phillip K Auna and his
terrier Night Hawk surfing together on a
wooden surfboard. The first dog surfing
championship was held in 2006 in California,
with events becoming popular in the USA
and Australia… and the phenomenon
reached UK shores in 2018.
Held at the dog-friendly Branksome Dene
Chine beach near Poole in Dorset, the UK
Dog Surfing Championships has grown year
on year, with 2022’s edition also seeing live
music, food stalls and fancy dress (mostly
from the humans). Media attention has
been extreme. The event featured on The
One Show, This Morning and Sky News,
with organisers Mark and Jules saying, “We
were astounded by the media interest. Every
national paper and every local paper in the
UK (we mean every single paper including
Scotland and Ireland). But why not – it’s such
a fun day!”
The 2024 UK Dog Surfing Championship
will take place in July 2024; see www.shakasurf.
co.uk. To keep up to date with Spike and Rob,
follow @spikesurfs on Instagram.
20 UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

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FOR THE OUTDOORS.
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Where are they now?
Ever wondered what previous Ocean Film Festival stars are up to now? To celebrate our
10th anniversary, we’ve caught up with some favourite adventurers from years gone by
James Adair and Ben Stenning: 2014 saw the
extraordinary story of two mates who, as university
students, made a drunken bet to row the Indian Ocean.
James Adair and Ben Stenning then spent the next
seven years in jobs they hated. By 2010 the pair had had
enough of their mundane lives and remembered Ernest
Hemingway’s words, ‘always do sober what you said
you’d do drunk.’
Having never rowed before, the two friends set out in
a second-hand boat. Nobody thought they’d make it.
Over 5,000km and 116 gruelling days later, off the coast
of Mauritius just a few miles from the finish line, a wave
capsized their boat and left them swimming for five hours in shark-infested waters. Thankfully
they were rescued, and the documentary And Then We Swam was a total hit!
But where are they now? Ben lives in Kenya and works in logistics, while James is Londonbased
and is a partner in a company called Big 5 Search, which aims to ensure that businesses
in Africa and emerging markets have access to the best leaders from the global talent pool. Both
have been busy on the biggest adventure of all – having kids – so other less life-threatening
expeditions have been on hold, but the duo are working towards another row and a sailing
circumnavigation. James says, “you only get one life, so best to live it without regrets.”
BRUNO HANSEN: South African Bruno Hansen
touched our hearts in the 2015 film Devocean… and he’s
certainly been busy since then!
As a young man, Bruno spent his life in or around the
water, surfing, sailing, freediving and working on a charter
yacht taking surfers to find the world’s best waves. But
when he was 27, a tragic road accident left him paralysed
from the waist down. Feeling hopeless and depressed,
Bruno tried to drown himself in the sea, but instead reconnected
with the ocean, and found the courage to start
his life again. Devocean told the story of his inspirational
journey – and that journey is still continuing.
Since 2015, Bruno has made it into the Guinness Book of Records for winning six consecutive
gold medals in para (adaptive) surfing. He’s travelled the world surfing different waves and
competitions, meeting other adaptive surfers, and he now lives in Central America, where the
jungle meets the sea. He also found wider fame when an extended version of his story, called
Ocean Therapy, was shown on Netflix. We can’t wait to see what Bruno does next!
22 UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

Where are they now? cont...
nico edwards: All aboard for a lifetime of carefree
adventure! The 2017 film Sea Gypsies featured the 120ft
sailing boat Infinity (rescued from a scrap yard) and
her ragtag crew, on a never-ending voyage of nomadic
exploration. In Sea Gypsies we joined the tribe as they
ventured from New Zealand to Patagonia via Antarctica,
and their adventures since then have been no less thrilling.
Since 2017, Infinity has been on two major expeditions.
In 2018 she did a very long version of the Northwest
Passage: from Fiji to Amsterdam, over the top of Canada.
And in 2022 she went back to Antarctica, so late in the
season that she was the only ship down there.
“The 2018 Northwest Passage was pretty brutal and completely amazing,” says Nico
Edwards, Infinity’s resident filmmaker. “Hot air at the North Pole pushed the ice south into
the passage, clogging it up to the point that locals told us it was the most ice they had seen
in summer in living memory. Infinity got stuck a number of times and we were beginning to
prepare ourselves for overwintering, but we got through by the skin of our teeth.”
Nico is currently editing footage of the expedition, and we hope to show it in a forthcoming
Ocean Film Festival. Watch this space!
KARLIS BARDELIS: In 2018 we met Latvian adventurers
Kārlis Bārdelis and Gints Barkovskis, who became the
first ever team to row across the South Atlantic Ocean, as
documented in the film Touched by the Ocean. The pair had
plenty of enthusiasm but no rowing experience... which
made it an interesting voyage!
Gints was content to hang up his paddles when they
reached Brazil, but for Kārlis the adventure was just
getting going. From Brazil he cycled 5,400km across the
continent to Lima in Peru. He then rowed solo from Peru
to Malaysia, a journey that took nearly two years (stopping
at a few islands along the way), becoming the first person
to row from South America to Asia.
After a covid-enforced break, Kārlis was back in Malaysia for the final leg of his journey.
Aiming for Tanzania, he hit many challenges on his return to Africa, with huge waves and
strong winds blowing him off course. Despite that, his six-year circumnavigation of the world
was unprecedented, earning him six world records.
Karlis explained what motivates him to do all these crazy adventures: “I can’t imagine not
doing the things I do. I’ve got 99 problems, but motivation isn’t one of them!”
UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR
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mathilde & lucy: Starring in the 2021 film Changing
Tides, Lucy Graham and Mathilde Gordon not only
kayaked 2,000km down the coast of Alaska and Canada,
but did the whole expedition single-use-plastic-free. The
duo hoped to show that if they could survive plastic-free
in a damp, rainy, salty and cramped environment, then
it’s possible to live without single-use-plastic at home too.
Now back home in Australia, they both work for
environmental organisations. Mathilde is with the
Tangaroa Blue Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to
the removal and prevention of marine debris. Lucy runs
a non-government conservation organisation called the
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre, where she engages with the community, and helps
the region speak up for the environment.
After embracing micro-adventures during the pandemic, both women have bigger trips
planned: Lucy is looking at a long-distance cycling expedition in Australia or Taiwan, and
Mathilde is hoping to buy a yacht and sail in the Pacific.
“My awe for nature and my desire to be immersed in it, away from technology, the bustle of
society and other stresses, is what motivates me to go on adventures,” says Mathilde. “If there’s
the opportunity to raise awareness about an issue, or inspire others to do the same, then I try to
embrace that as much as possible. But deep down I really just want to see whales!”
alan payne: Eyre & Sea won the People’s Choice
Award in the 2022 UK Tour, partly thanks to its charming
and charismatic star, former sheep shearer Alan Payne.
Alan has spent the last 30 years providing people with the
unforgettable experience of swimming with sealions in
Baird Bay, South Australia, as well as creating awareness
of this endangered species.
Since the film, Alan and his team have done rehabilitation
and revegetation work on nearby Jones Island, and have
made shelters for sealions to use during the mating and
pupping mating season. They have also established a pole
nest on the island to encourage ospreys back to nest.
“My motivation to continue is the enjoyment you see on people’s faces when they meet the
sealions, and also the respect and care that people come away with,” says Alan.
But he can’t continue forever. “My wife and I have been at this for over 30 years now, but our
time is coming to an end,” Alan continues. “Age and health have slowed us up a bit, so we are
now looking for someone to carry on the legacy, and continue to put the sealions out there so
that they get the care and respect they deserve.”
You can watch Eyre & Sea on demand as part of the virtual 2022 Ocean Film Festival. See
www.oceanfilmfestival.co.uk/virtual.
22 26 UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

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